Woes of Babysitting
by PsychicDreams
Summary: A little prank by a customer of Yuuko's ends up giving her what turns out to be her worst nightmare yet.
1. Chapter 1

Forgive me if this might seem a bit cliché, as it was inspired by three different sources. One was **stillciircee**'s baby Shizuka story. The other a story (on on where Wata-chan is shrunk but still maintains his mental capacities of a sixteen year old (the story which I can't currently find...), and my urge to write something to do with an adorable Wata-chan thanks to my other fic I just did, Wind Which Blows From The Dark._  
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_--- _

_Ring Ring_

Doumeki groaned and tried to ignore the sound that penetrated his sleep. If he just ignored it, it would go away. This was a proven fact, as Doumeki had found. It worked all the time.

_Ring Ring Ring_

…Just not this time. It seemed to grow even louder when he ignored it, as if it found that offensive. Even though the phone was in the living room, he could hear it clearly in his bedroom. Knowing that it would wake up his parents if he didn't get it, and just in case it was Watanuki, he crawled out of his bed to answer it.

His mother had just come out his room to grab it, dressed in a robe and looking tired. He waved her back to bed, which she was just as happy to go and picked up the phone. "Yes?"

"Doumeki-kun?"

Oh. Her. Doumeki rubbed his gritty, tired eyes and yawned. Scratching his head only made his rumpled hair worse, as usually at two am in the morning he was happily sleeping, and muttered in a rough voice, "Yeah?"

"Ne, ne, Doumeki-kun, could you meet me in the park? It's Watanuki."

"What happened?"

"Just come. Oh, you won't need your bow, though, so don't worry."

The dial tone assaulted his ears this time instead of her voice as she hung up and he set the phone back in its cradle slowly. His mother would kill him if she found out he was leaving, but what choice did he have? He slipped back to his room and pulled off his pajamas to trade for comfortable jeans and a gray, worn-in t-shirt. But his mother didn't come back out of his parent's bedroom even as he pulled on his shoes and left the temple.

It was actually the perfect weather that Doumeki liked. Not too hot nor too cold. He couldn't suppress another yawn, but he had gotten used to being called out in the middle of the night for these kinds of things. He wondered what Watanuki had gotten himself into this time. An injury of some sort maybe? Obviously nothing too serious, since Yuuko had sounded more amused than worried.

"No, don't touch that, that's bad for you."

She glanced up when he approached, and raised an eyebrow at his unkempt appearance, since he hadn't taken the time nor interest to care if his hair was brushed. As if she couldn't help it, she commented, "You look like you stuck your finger in an electrical socket."

Doumeki just grunted in response to the tease and asked, "Where's Watanuki?"

Her grin was so wide he thought it would crack her face and she bent down to pick up something at her feet that he had failed to notice. He blinked blearily and rubbed his eyes to make sure that it was indeed what he _thought_ she was showing him. The image didn't change and somehow of all the things he had expected, this wasn't it.

"…Oh."

Watanuki Kimihiro was short. Short and now three years old, to be more precise. In an action that even Doumeki could only describe as adorably cute, Watanuki stuck his covered fingers in his mouth and lightly chewed on them.

His eyes glanced down at the ground, seeing what could only be Watanuki's pants lying in a heap. The shirt he wore was four times as big as he was and part of it was getting wet with drool as the little boy chewed mercilessly on it.

"What happened?"

"I sent him to pick up just a little charm for me, but that's where things went wrong. For whatever reason, he carried a mirror with him. The little sprite with the charm is a mischievous one and when she caught him glancing in it, she played a trick."

"Turned him into a kid?"

"Yup and took off right after again, so now I have to get in contact with her again to get the charm she didn't give Watanuki."

"How long is it going to last?" His overwhelming thought at the moment was that they get Watanuki back to normal. Watanuki _did_ have a life, albeit a strange one, and they couldn't spend the next sixteen years raising him again.

"Anywhere from a week to a month. The magic isn't strong enough to last more than one month."

"And you called me out here…why?"

"So you can take care of him!" she answered with panache.

Doumeki was suitably _not_ impressed. "I can't. My parents would notice if I suddenly brought a child home."

"Would they think it was yours, Doumeki-kun?" she teased.

He glanced down just as little Watanuki looked up, those mismatched eyes much larger than he thought any should be allowed to be. An adorable smile touched his face and it was then that Doumeki realized something about himself, something that shocked even him.

He had a weakness to cute things.

"I can't take him in," Doumeki repeated and folded his arms.

As if Watanuki got heavier in her outstretched arms, Yuuko shifted her hold until she had him held against her hip. "Well, we can't give him to Himawari-chan and he doesn't know anyone else. Obviously leaving him alone is out of the question too."

"…Why don't you take him in?"

She blinked, as if the idea hadn't occurred to her. Doumeki thought it was perfectly reasonable, given that she was the one that knew what happened, lived alone, and was old enough to know how to take care of a toddler.

The wish granter looked down at the little boy huddled against her side that looked so tiny in the big shirt, and smiled a little. "Hell, why not? It can't kill me."

As she left the park, his eyes followed her. He wasn't entirely sure of that last statement. After all, this _was_ Watanuki, child or not. Adorable or not. Somehow he didn't envy her the kind of things she'd probably have to deal with. He was no expert at raising children and would have no clue what to do, but he _had_ heard horror stories from his mother about himself.

Soulless children notwithstanding, he doubted that Yuuko had any sort of experience with children.

"Might be fun."

"Eh? Watanuki-kun is a baby?!"

Doumeki shook his head at Himawari's shocked voice. "No, not really. He looks like he's three or four years old."

"Well that explains why he didn't come to school. But poor Watanuki-kun. This'll ruin his perfect attendance." And like he had expected, she smiled brightly. "But I want to see him! He's probably just _adorable_! But…can we enter the shop?"

"Not likely," he answered, though he had no proof. He just didn't think having Watanuki a child would be enough for them to enter.

Himawari rummaged around in her bag and pulled out a cellphone. Neither Watanuki nor he owned one. He had never seen the use for one and Watanuki couldn't afford one. Yuuko no doubt had one since she had called him from the park the night before. He just hadn't expected Himawari to have one too, as she didn't seem to know that many people.

He figured she'd probably gotten the witch's number during the time Watanuki had been healing after falling out the window. He listened vaguely to the one-sided conversation and realized that until Watanuki grew back up in a real hurry to what he was supposed to be, he wouldn't be having any lunch. Now this was a real state of emergency.

"She said she'll be at the park after school. Do you want to go, Doumeki-kun?"

Doumeki had archery practice, but the prospect of seeing cute little Watanuki made him figure he could skip it. After all, at least at this age, he wouldn't be yelled at and as he had discovered the night before, he had a weakness for something that adorable.

Watanuki was even more endearing by daylight. He was in a pair of tiny overalls and blue shirt, obviously given to him by Yuuko, and fluttered around with the other children. For a minute, he wondered as he watched the little boy go farther and farther away from the older woman, who had taken to talking excitedly with Himawari, if he was afflicted with spirits. Watanuki had told him he'd had it ever since he was born.

As if to answer his question, Watanuki's little legs soon stopped running with the other children and he could see tiny little shivers going down that spine. His eyes widened and he looked like he was about to cry as he stared at the empty air in front of him.

The boy was probably safe from spirits with Yuuko, but she was too busy gossiping with Himawari like two housewives with children, so he took the few necessary steps needed to reach the child. When his aura seemed to encompass Watanuki, he blinked away and looked up at the hulking mass that was Doumeki.

There was a singular moment where they just stared at each other and Doumeki realized just how unfathomably deep Watanuki's eyes were, even as a child. He could get lost in them so quickly. Those mismatched colored eyes were still the same even as a child and suddenly, quick as a blink, he was seeing himself through a child's vision. He seemed impossibly huge and the sun was shining behind him, making his face shrouded in shadows.

He watched himself partly as he crouched down in front of Watanuki. The moment his arms touched the boy, his double vision was lost, but that didn't really matter. Watanuki was being silent. Wasn't yelling at him, nor was his face suffused with rage. In fact, as he picked up the child, those lips curled into a happy smile.

"Kimihiro!"

Doumeki glanced up at Yuuko's voice and for the first time he realized that this child didn't seem to fit "Watanuki", but he was a "Kimihiro". Perhaps he should start calling him that, as he seemed to respond without question to the name.

"Bring Watanuki-kun here, Doumeki-kun!" Himawari added enthusiastically.

Yuuko reached out to hold Watanuki when he got near them, but Watanuki stubbornly wrapped his little hands in Doumeki's shirt. The three of them blinked and Yuuko suddenly had peals of laughter spilling from her mouth. She laughed so hard, she was clutching her stomach as she sat on the bench.

"At least when he's this small, he's not in denial!"

Watanuki's eyes looked up at him, as if asking if he could stay and Doumeki finally shrugged and sat down on the ground. The little boy crawled out of his lap to go play again, but he noticed that he never strayed too far from the archer. He wasn't sure how, but maybe in the way that only children's instincts can be, he had realized that the bigger boy kept away the scary things.

"He is just too cute!" Himawari gushed and Doumeki raised his eyebrow when he noticed that Watanuki still smiled at her. Really, some things never changed no matter how old.

"Between the three of us, you're the one he still gravitates too, Doumeki-kun," Yuuko murmured slyly.

Doumeki shrugged. "Probably because he figured out the spirits don't go near him if I'm there."

"Maybe," was all she said in response, but her expression said she didn't think it was all that simple.


	2. Chapter 2

At first, it wasn't too bad. Watanuki was just as cute as usual, just in a more physical sense this way. And the twins just adored him even more. They would take turns holding and tickling him and he loved Mokona to death, to the point that sometimes the little creature found it hard to breathe when he was being hugged in a death grip.

And somehow, for all the fact that Watanuki as a child didn't really talk, the noise level didn't drop from the usual. He giggled and laughed, which caused the girls to giggle and laugh, which caused Mokona to giggle and laugh until the whole house was just full of the sounds of happy children.

Yuuko would watch the three year old in the yard with her little helpers as he played, though he did like her magnolia flowers more than she liked. But whenever she was about to yell at him for grabbing one and breaking it off, he'd come trotting over and hand it to her, looking so proud of himself and wanting to be praised. When he did that, she just couldn't bring herself to scold him.

The only true downside she saw, _at first_, was that Watanuki wasn't making her dinner. She didn't even really mind when the first few nights, Watanuki would come to her bedroom and beg to sleep with her because he was scared. No spirits could get him in the shop, but perhaps he sensed the other magics here that his mind as a teenager had unconsciously blocked out.

This was all very acceptable for the first few days. However, it began to lose its shine after that when she realized that Watanuki, as a little boy, was a _pest_. He was always getting into her stuff that she really didn't want him getting into for whatever reason. Either they would hurt him in some way or have some other magic on him or she just didn't want her touching her pretty things. Like her favorite dress she only wore for special parties. He'd almost ripped it! And he loved her favorite coat that had fur on the collar and cuffs. She'd found him napping on it and drooling over it, which would take special time cleaning.

Not to mention, he just adored her earrings, which was not a good thing when she was _wearing_ them.

As if this wasn't enough, she could never have a drink. Ever. Somehow even as a child, Watanuki seemed determined not to let her have as single drip of sake or beer or any kind of alcohol. He would crawl over her when she did, wanting to play or whatnot and be so insistent that she had no choice but to put it down. Or he'd knock over the bottle, intentionally or unintentionally, so she couldn't drink it. And he used his cuteness as a lethal weapon so that she was about to scold him for it, he'd look all teary eyed up at her and she just…_couldn't. do. it._

Right then, the silence was bothering her. Where was he? Despite the fact that though she figured he could, Watanuki never talked, he was still never quiet with his giggles and his bright, shiny laughter.

She knew this was the perfect time. She was _alone_ and the sake bottle beckoned. She'd even had it in her hand before it finally got to her. She had to know what he was doing and where he was.

Suspiciously, she went through the house and cornered Maru and Moro, but they were out in the garden and didn't know where Watanuki was. Mokona, in her bedroom napping on her pillow, had no idea. This was giving her the creeps. Frowning, she realized just how big her home was and how many places a small child could crawl into.

"Kimihiro!" she called, as he always came when someone called him by his first name. "Kimihiro, where are you?"

Knowing what a little curious pest he was, she decided to check her treasure room first. She knew it was hitsuzen when she saw those little baby feet crawling in between two big boxes that were propping up a third. Mokona and the girls, drawn by the fact that she was looking for the boy, had followed her.

Maru and Moro did a little dance, chanting, when they found him, causing the boy to turn and smile happily. He came back out from between the boxes, dragging with him in one hand her best toy imitation of the wand Clow had created for his descendant. He was laughing and trying to hurry and the heavy wand banged against one of the boxes, causing the one above him to shift precariously.

Her eyes widened and she dove. "Kimihiro!" The boy didn't even get to see what was coming at him as she had wrapped her arms around him and shielded him as best she could in her layers of fabric and embrace.

The box banged hard against her arm and she grunted. That was a heavy one and it felt like her arm had broken. She knew it hadn't, but it _felt_ like it had. The dust finally settled and there was quiet, as the girls had become instantly quiet when the tragedy had almost struck.

Watanuki didn't seem to realize what had happened and only pulled from her embrace to smile goofily at her and show her his 'prize' that he had found, wanting to be praised for the neat thing he had uncovered. This time however, knowing the harm that could have befallen the helpless and unprotected creature, she couldn't curb her desire to scold him.

"Kimihiro! This is _bad_! No! You almost hurt yourself, you're not supposed to come in here and you know it!"

At her harsh tone, the smile was gone and the lower chin began to tremble. And for the first time since he'd been turned into a child, Watanuki began to cry. He gave tiny little wails that made her feel terrible for raising her voice and it ended up setting off the girls and even Mokona. And no matter how she tried to console him, Watanuki had apparently convinced himself he was not loved anymore.

Raising a child and taking care of one was a lot harder than she had anticipated. Not to mention, she hadn't thought the spell would last this long. As powerful as she was, she was just as helpless as anyone else at raising such a tender thing. She had thought, at the suggestion of Doumeki's, that since he was so cute, it might be fun. Now she truly realized how much work went into making a house child proof.

"Oh god…Now I remember why I never had children."

_Ring Ring Ring_

"Hello?"

"Doumeki-kun?"

The archer sighed when he heard the Dimensional Witch's voice on the line. He hadn't really seen much of her or Watanuki in the past five days. He had figured that that meant Watanuki hadn't turned back yet to his normal age. Not to mention the fact he had an archery competition coming up and the captain of the team was keeping everyone late after school, just to make sure they won.

"Meet me at the park immediately."

Her tone brooked no contradiction and he raised an eyebrow in speculation. "Okay."

Something was definitely wrong. She sounded almost…stressed. Had something happened she hadn't foreseen? Or maybe she had found out that the spell wouldn't fade on its own and they needed to do something extra to make it go away.

Doumeki didn't waste much time. She hadn't mentioned it, so he hadn't brought it, but he could not deny that he'd stared long and hard at his bow before he'd stepped out the door. One of those 'should I bring it just in case' moments.

He heard Watanuki before he saw him and that quickened his steps. Watanuki sounded nearly frantic and before long, he found he was jogging. The park was empty, amazingly enough for this time of day, and he found the tall woman's figure easily. She looked just a tad unkempt and there was a frown on her face.

Watanuki was in her arms and crying his eyes out. Upon coming close, Yuuko shoved the little boy straight into his arms before he had time to think. The tiny hands of his friend tangled in his shirt, and he automatically hugged the boy tight. Slowly, the crying petered off until the sound was a tired hiccupping instead.

"What happened?"

She groaned and merely dropped down tiredly on the nearby bench. "He's convinced I hate him now."

"Why?" Doumeki glanced down as Watanuki seem to fall asleep against him, his ear right over the calming heartbeat of the archer and he shifted a little to hold him more comfortably.

"I admit, I yelled." She recounted what had happened and Doumeki could see why she did. It was an instinctual reaction, of course, when you realized what sort of bad things that could happen if that had hit Watanuki. But apparently, Watanuki was a lot more sensitive now than he was when he was a teenager.

"Take care of him until the spell wears off."

"I told you I couldn't."

"That's been taken care of," she said tiredly and yet dismissively. "When you get home, they'll have left a note saying they're going to visit family."

He frowned and his golden eyes flashed a little angrily. He did not appreciate her just doing as she pleased with his family. "On what pretext?"

"Does it matter?" she retorted, her own temper not exactly as great as it usually was. "You have to take him, he won't stop crying if he's with me. And when he cries, the girls cry. And when the girls cry, Mokona cries. And then _none_ of them will stop!"

Doumeki could see a whole bunch of problems that could arise because of this. What about school? What happened if it really took a month for him to revert back? He didn't think whatever pretext Yuuko managed to finagle would last _that_ long.

But he couldn't say no, given how Watanuki was curled against him with his little hands in fists on his shirt. He scratched his head, strong enough to hold Watanuki in one arm somewhat easily. How did he raise a child?

"…Fine," he answered, but they both had known that he would have agreed anyway. This was Watanuki, after all.

"Good. I'll bring his stuff over in an hour, so you can take him home and set him in bed for his nap now."

"Hn."  



	3. Chapter 3

Watanuki as a child was nothing like Doumeki had expected him to be. Yuuko had already apprised him of how Watanuki had been in her shop and he had fully expected the little boy to be the same way at the shrine.

The first difference he noted was that Watanuki began to talk. Not a whole lot at first and only when he felt that he could not get his point across any other way. Doumeki had wondered if maybe he didn't talk because he had a stutter or some equally embarrassing problem, but there wasn't. He spoke like a normal three-year-old could.

The second difference that caught his eye was that Watanuki _loved_ to help. Wherever he went, Watanuki was there trailing at his side with a grace and balance that Doumeki thought the boy in question lacked when he was older. He had his few stumbles, but had learned that when he tripped and began crying and Doumeki didn't do anything but look at him, to just pick himself up and continue.

Doumeki didn't exactly coddle or cater to Watanuki; at least he tried not to though it was hard with such a cute thing. And Yuuko had done her business and his family was indeed away to visit a colleague's shrine, so the weekend was fine. It was just come Monday morning and school that he was worried about.

A tug on his pant leg made him look down as he swept the yard. Watanuki's mismatched eyes were large and he smiled adorably that Doumeki had the urge to just sweep the boy up into his arms and hug him until neither of them could breathe. Naturally, he resisted the urge, as he had been since the moment Watanuki had been turned into a child.

"It goed away."

"What went?"

"The bad things."

He looked up and in the direction that Watanuki was pointing, but as usual, there was nothing there. He frowned a little. Surely there wouldn't be any bad spirits near the shrine, though he couldn't exactly discount that there perhaps were some non-harmful ones. Maybe Watanuki couldn't tell the difference between the ones that were scary and the ones that were not. Maybe he just lumped them altogether as "bad things".

And that was how it went for the two days of the weekend. Watanuki loved to help, but as Yuuko warned, also was a pest. He got into _everything_: Doumeki's clothes, the storage room where most of his grandfather's things were, and his favorite was the protection charms. He didn't like books, though. Apparently they were boring to a three-year-old.

Among his other favorite things, Doumeki had learned, was dinnertime. Or rather, at any point in the day that Doumeki was to be found doing something 'interesting' in the kitchen. Some things didn't change and obviously Watanuki's love of the kitchen and cooking was ingrained in his DNA.

It was a little head wracking at first, as he always had to keep an eye on Watanuki otherwise the boy would get in trouble. The first time Watanuki had come to his room, all fearful-looking, he had put up extra wards in the room, but Watanuki refused to stay there. Every time he had gone back to sleep, he was woken up five minutes later by the little boy. On the pain of not getting any sleep at all, he finally let him sleep with him.

Watanuki also adored it when he called him by his name, 'Kimihiro'. No matter where he was, he found that if he said the name loud enough for the little boy to hear, he'd hear the pitter-patter of feet speeding in his direction. It was somewhat gratifying to see a truly honest Watanuki Kimihiro.

However, as Monday morning came nearer, he still had not a clear solution of what do with Watanuki. He'd already called up Yuuko and had forced her to come visit, to ask if she could take him back or at least baby-sit him during the day. Since Watanuki didn't burst into tears upon seeing her and only smiled, he obviously forgot the reason he had been given to Doumeki in the first place.

It took a bit of work, but she finally agreed to take him during the day and would bring him back once the school day was over. He still wanted her to take Watanuki to care for all day, but considering the amount of dangerous things Watanuki could get into at the shop, he had to admit perhaps that was not the greatest of ideas.

"Shii-chan?" Watanuki Kimihiro was wide-awake, or he thought he was. He smiled brightly and ran up to the man in the kimono. "Shii-chan?"

A hand touched his head and finally it dawned on the three-year-old that this man was not the one that was taking care of him. He did not understand how two people could look so alike, but he did know that the one taking care of him didn't touch him a lot.

"No, I'm Haruka." The big man laughed a little and ruffled his black hair. "You really do get yourself into predicaments, don't you, Watanuki-kun?"

Watanuki had a large vocabulary, like most three-year-olds do, even if he could not speak it well when he chose to speak at all. He grinned, as if there was something funny in what the man had said and was about to sit down next to him when the man lifted him up and set him in his lap. Curiously, Watanuki looked up and tilted his head cutely in question.

"Why don't you talk, I wonder," the big man murmured, his voice always low and soothing. "You do so all the time when you're big."

In truth, though he didn't know how to say it, Watanuki found that he was too busy to bother with words. Words were hard. They had to come out in the right way or otherwise big people didn't understand. Watanuki always had things to do, was always in motion and hurrying, so that he did not have much time to mess with words.

"Shizuka enjoys your company even now, especially since you're so cute."

Watanuki let the big man hug him and talk, but the warmth soon made him sleepy and the voice soothed him into slumber. He remembered the soft smile of the adult and smiled in his sleep.

Doumeki was about to head to archery practice at the end of his day that morning, but the little cries of "Shii-chan, Shii-chan" stopped him momentarily. Both he and Himawari turned to look and watched as Watanuki waddled towards them with a happy smile and latched onto the archer's leg so firmly that Doumeki almost fancied he could walk without dislodging the boy.

"He kept asking me where you were, Doumeki-kun," Yuuko answered and she looked distinctly tired again. She had probably, no doubt, kept Watanuki in her sight all day, but that also meant to be dealing with a rambunctious child all day too that loved to get into things.

"But I told him I'd be back."

"Children don't know time," Himawari interrupted. "Things don't exist that aren't in their specific field of vision. For that same reason, they don't understand time either." When he gave her a questioning look, she giggled and blushed. "I read a book about children when I heard that Watanuki became little. I thought it might help."

Given that Watanuki didn't seem to want to let go, Doumeki had no choice but to bring him along to club practice. He garnered many raised eyebrows among the other members, but before Doumeki could even come up with a suitable explanation for his presence, Himawari had already lied very smoothly that he was Doumeki's little cousin that had come for a visit.

Himawari, thankfully, kept Watanuki fully occupied from getting into trouble while he practiced. However, he couldn't deny that he was distracted and watching every move in the corner where the two were. It was an unspoken agreement and understanding between the two of them that Watanuki was never to be alone with Himawari at any point in time without Doumeki there. After all, as a child, he had even less defenses than he did when he was sixteen.

And this was a pattern that continued for two more days before Yuuko told him that she couldn't take him for a day because of business. The way she had said business told Doumeki in no uncertain terms that it was something he did not want Watanuki anywhere near to.

He could not leave the child alone in the shrine. He could not give the child to somebody to take care of. Whatever Yuuko had done to keep his parents out of town still seemed to be holding. He thought about it the whole night long, not getting any sleep, and had little choice but to either not go to school that day or bring Watanuki to school with him.

Since he was sure that the second wasn't allowed, he decided to stay home. It wouldn't entirely kill him to miss a day of school, or so he told himself. The routine that Watanuki had gotten used to in the past three days of being given over to Yuuko for the morning was disrupted and all day, Watanuki clung to him, as if he might disappear any second.

Even when Doumeki took a small break from chores and sat down, Watanuki was right there and even crawling in his lap to cuddle. And though he did not mind Watanuki as he was right then, since when he was three-years-old, he began to wonder when the spell would be over. He was having enough trouble as it was trying to keep up with the child and he didn't think he could do this for a month.

And really, despite being cute and adorable and cuddle worthy, Watanuki as a sixteen-year-old was far more fun.

Watanuki slowly opened his eyes and touched his splitting head. He felt as if he'd been ramming it into a wall repeatedly before passing out. His mind was extremely fuzzy and even trying to figure out what the last thing he remembered was hard. He groaned and tried to roll over, only to encounter something warm and big behind him.

Frowning, he looked over his shoulder, just as breath tickled his ear. When he saw who it was, the only thing he could think of was, _Oh fuck_. He had just pulled in enough breath to screech the boy's name when another thing caught his attention besides the sleeping, stupid archer.

He was naked. Very, very naked.

"_**GAHHHH!**_"

Watanuki landed hard off the futon and onto the floor. The sound could wake the dead, so naturally Doumeki blinked his eyes open sleepily. One eyebrow rose at the split second view he had of Watanuki's body before Watanuki had snatched the sheets to give himself some privacy.

"_What the hell are you doing in my apartment?! **Why am I naked?!**_"

"I'm not in your apartment. We're in my house."

It was instinct to shout at him that the archer was wrong, but Watanuki finally looked at his surroundings. Sure enough, he was not at his apartment. But that did not answer his second question and he rounded violently on the other boy. "You still haven't told me _why I'm naked!_"

"I don't know."

_RingRing_

The phone interrupted his next tirade and he raised an eyebrow. "You have a phone in your room?"

"Since everyone is always calling me in the middle of the night, why not?"

Doumeki was as monotone as he usually was, only answering in a yes or no, before hanging up. The golden eyes stared at him for an exceedingly long period of time, which caused Watanuki to squirm uncomfortably, as he _was_ still naked. He couldn't get the thought out of his head that he had woken up next to Doumeki naked. It just wasn't computing. In fact, it was causing his brain to freeze and crash with a spectacularly large scream of pain.

"Guess you don't remember."

"Remember _what_?!" he hissed.

"You were changed into a three-year-old for almost two weeks. Yuuko and I took care of you."

Another fact that was not computing. "…Huh?"

Doumeki yawned and sat up. "You wouldn't sleep in any other room but mine. I stopped even trying to get you to sleep by yourself, you always wanted to be with me."

Watanuki was turning a fascinating shade of red. "_Liar!_ I'd never, ever do that!"

"You did," Doumeki corrected without so much as a pause. "Not to mention, everywhere I went, you followed me around and clung to my leg."

"_I did not!_"

"How do you know?"

"I…um…well…There's just no way I'd _ever_ want to be around such a jerk like you! Oh, why couldn't Himawari-chan have taken care of me?" he lamented.

Strangely, this had an odd reaction. Doumeki frowned and answered seriously, "All three of us, including Kunogi, agreed that you were never to be alone with her. It may not be on purpose, but with her problem, you could have been seriously injured beyond the point of repair. You were so…defenseless."

Watanuki blushed at the soft tone that Doumeki spoke the last line in and he began to squirm a little more, toward the bedroom door. Doumeki wasn't that gentle. Doumeki wasn't that nice. He wasn't _supposed_ to be gentle or nice. He was supposed to be mean and nasty so that Watanuki could hate him in peace.

"Really, Watanuki, you are _terrible_ as a child!"

He glanced up when suddenly, out of nowhere, Yuuko appeared. It didn't surprise him. When it came to Yuuko, nothing surprised him. She put her hands on her hips and he noticed that she looked distinctly put out by something.

"Honestly, you may look cute, but you're just horrible! You're a pest, you get into everything, you never listen, and you got away with everything!"

Somehow, the more he listened to Yuuko rant about how he'd acted as a child, the more he felt better. He may have unintentionally gotten the best revenge of all time for her teasing. The more he thought that, the more he grinned, until he was laughing hard enough that tears came out. 


	4. Chapter 4

Watanuki didn't exactly enjoy the next three days of cleaning now that the spell of him being a child was over. Things were a huge mess, not to mention dust everywhere. The treasure room had been entirely rearranged, with all the breakable and dangerous things on high shelves out of reach of a small kid. As soon as he had come to work the first day after being a teenager again, Yuuko had gone on the worst drinking binge he had ever seen and it had taken three bottles of Ekiyabe to even dent her hangover.

Though he'd never let anyone know, out of the sheer mortification that would happen, Watanuki was slowly remembering what he'd done as a child. It came to him in dreams mostly, with an ethereal, unreal sort of quality to them. He couldn't tell if it had actually happened half the time or if that was just his subconscious embellishing them as he slept.

For example, it _had_ to be embellishment that said that he had willingly crawled in Doumeki's lap to cuddle with the stupid lug.

Catching up at school wasn't easy, since he had lost two weeks of his life. His teachers had suggested tutors and had him stay after much of the time to help him on the things that would be on their exams. Of course, those were the _nice_ teachers. His math and English teachers, on the other hand, had only sneered slightly and said he shouldn't have been absent and if he wanted to know, to find someone in his class to help him.

He had also taken to avoiding Doumeki, because every time he was with the other boy, he would get stared at in a peculiar way that was making him uncomfortable. And though he yelled at him every time he did so, now instead of being called 'oi', it was 'Kimihiro'. He couldn't tell which was worse. He hated being called oi, as he did have a name, but he hadn't given the stupid boy the permission to use his first name.

When he had demanded why he kept calling him that, Doumeki had merely shrugged, explained that Watanuki hadn't answered to any other name, and said 'it stuck'.

Watanuki was so busy playing catch-up with school and housework and his miserable little life in general, that he didn't even have time to do any of Yuuko's jobs. She seemed put out and had warned him that she'd have him get the charm he had failed to get when he had been turned into a child after one more week.

He wondered just what the hell was so damn special about the thing anyway.

"_Why_ must I see you every moment of every day?! Why couldn't _Himawari-chan_ teach me?!" he complained for the thousandth time that day as he sat in the shrine and listened to Doumeki explain about the math and English assignments he'd missed.

"Because she doesn't have your classes," was the prompt, expressionless reply.

By the time Watanuki went home that night after the week that Yuuko had given him was over, he just collapsed onto his bed without even changing. He was so, so tired. He didn't handle an overwhelming amount of stress well. Usually he had his schoolwork all caught up and didn't have to worry about it, so that he had enough mental capabilities to worry about other things, but not this time. He felt like he was running full out on a race that had no end in sight and he was just very tired.

And despite the winter chill still clinging, he was terribly hot. He hoped that if he just stopped moving his body and lay still, it would go away and he would become cooler. Maybe after a long, long sleep, he would feel better and not so faintly lightheaded and stressed.

Unfortunately, that wasn't meant to be. He had slept through the night, said his alarm clock, but his body felt even heavier than it did when he'd gone to bed. With a groan he managed to sit up and pull of his socks and clothes. His arms and legs shook a little and he felt like a newborn kitten, lacking any sort of strength.

Swallowing was painfully hard and stung and he began to make an educated guess that he was sick. This didn't help his mood, but he couldn't take any more days off from school. He still had time to get up and reach the school, if he hurried.

Since he didn't have time for a shower, he merely stripped and ducked his head under cold water to hopefully wake him up. Thankfully he had his spare uniform cleaned and despite his awkward balance, he managed to get them on. He refused to look at his bloodshot and pale appearance in the mirror and grabbed his books, trying to also ignore how hard it felt to breathe.

He was almost late and he could only attribute it to the fact that he had a tiny bit of luck left that he managed to make it to his homeroom class. Himawari watched him with concern and suggested that he go home, but he only shook his head. He couldn't afford to miss anymore school.

It wasn't until class had begun that he realized he'd forgotten his glasses at home, and hoped that was the reason that everything was slightly fuzzy and he couldn't really see anything. It was through sheer will that he didn't pass out by the time lunch came along and he came to another realization. He didn't make anything to eat, not that he could have kept it down anyway. And even if he could, his throat felt so awful that he wasn't sure he could have _swallowed_ anything without passing out from the pain.

Watanuki made it to their usual lunch spot before the other two and he slumped under the shade of one of the trees gratefully. He had only intended to blink, but apparently he had dozed off for a minutes because the next thing he knew, his shoulder was being shaken. Blearily, he looked up, but didn't even have the energy to feel consternation when he saw it was Doumeki.

"Is lunch over already?" he muttered with a rough voice and trying to hide how pathetic he sounded.

"No, it just started."

Himawari sat down next to him and touched his forehead. He tried not to flinch and pull away from her touch because it was so warm and he was already hot despite the rather cool day.

"You're burning up, Watanuki-kun. You should go home."

He shook his head and plastered on a faint, reassuring smile. "I'm fine, Himawari-chan. I can't…" A faint pause as his head swam a little and his voice failed him, "afford to miss anymore school. I don't even know if I'll pass the exams right now as it is."

"I don't think that being in school in your state is going to help that either."

"Sh-shut up, Doumeki," he managed to spit out in a breathy, painful whisper. It hurt to even talk, so he stopped. He vaguely heard Himawari mention she was going to the cafeteria to get him something to drink and then it was silent.

Watanuki had hoped that Doumeki would live up to his name and be quiet, but it wasn't to be. Almost as soon as Himawari trotted away, he asked, "How'd you get sick?"

He let his eyes droop closed and gave a sigh. "How does _anybody_ get sick?" he rasped. "It just happens."

Doumeki reached over to touch his forehead and the biggest difference between Himawari and Doumeki's touch was that the boy's was pleasant, his palm nice and cool against his fevered skin. He sighed again at the pleasant sensations and though he'd deny it later, he leaned into the touch just a little.

"It's probably stress. You've been doing a lot this last week and worrying." Doumeki's voice was growing fainter and yet it was still a pleasant sound, like a low humming in his ears that eased him to sleep. "You don't have to worry about everything you know…"

The next time Watanuki woke up, he was in his bed in his apartment, wearing pajamas. He was feeling slightly more human and even…clean. The last thing he remembered was lunch at school and falling into another sleepy doze. His head still swam and his throat felt worse than before, but his vision wasn't nearly as bad as it had been.

Scratch that, it must be worse since Doumeki was sitting on the floor next to his bed and watching him. When he opened his mouth to say something, Doumeki interrupted a little too quickly for his peace of mind. "Don't talk, or do you want to lose your voice? You fell asleep during lunch and you were burning up. The school nurse said she hadn't ever seen a high temperature like yours outside of critical cases and said you had to go home immediately and not do anything stressful."

Watanuki would have snapped that Doumeki's mere presence was stressful enough, if he could talk and if he hadn't remembered the nice feeling he had gotten as Doumeki's voice lulled him to sleep. Not to mention that apparently when he had been a child, he'd also felt safe around Doumeki. Not that he'd ever _tell_ him that, not this side of hell.

"I brought you home and bathed you, changed you, and put you to bed." At Watanuki's outraged and livid look, Doumeki shrugged. "Not like I hadn't done it before when you were stuck as a kid. I did it every day." When he shook his head frantically, causing himself whiplash in the process and a pounding headache, Doumeki smirked and commented, "You really were the cutest thing as a kid."

Watanuki couldn't have spoken even if he wanted to and despite the weakness of his limbs thanks to his cold, which he was sure Doumeki caused in a major part, he threw a pillow at the archer.

"Don't worry. I'll always take care of you."

** End **  



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